


Aurous Flare

by emeraldpalace



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, M/M, Pre-Slash, Sparring, Unnecessary worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-14
Updated: 2020-07-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:28:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25252369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emeraldpalace/pseuds/emeraldpalace
Summary: Aran has been stationed at the Hong Kong Shatterdome as a Jaeger pilot for almost two years now, and has yet to find himself a permanent copilot.Enter Kita Shinsuke.
Relationships: Kita Shinsuke & Ojiro Aran, Kita Shinsuke/Ojiro Aran
Comments: 13
Kudos: 119





	Aurous Flare

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bastigod](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bastigod/gifts).



> this is directly inspired by [this wonderful art](https://twitter.com/andraste_/status/1282530050693378048) by the [equally wonderful basti](https://twitter.com/andraste_), and i had to push out this brainworm in one fell swoop

Aran has been stationed at the Hong Kong Shatterdome as a Jaeger pilot for almost two years now, and has yet to find himself a permanent copilot, and that’s not for a lack of trying.

“Sometimes it just takes a while, we’ll find someone for ya eventually!” Akagi from communications tells him every single time with a bright grin and encouraging pat on his back, but Aran thinks that Tendou from tech is more on point when he tells him with a mean laugh “You just have _awful_ luck, Aran-kun! You probably messed up real bad in your past life!”

It’s not even that Aran is particularly incompatible with other people, it’s just that the people he’s compatible with end up usually better with someone else—Ushijima and him matched evenly on the tatami but they never synched up as well as Ushijima did with the almost-scrawny but shrewd Shirabu, because Ushijima needs more support rather than a true equal in the cockpit. He’d been a good match with Bokuto and Kiryuu as well, but they ended up better with each other despite their drastically different personalities. Hell, he’d even been paired off to Osamu for a while, after the first and only failed mission of the famed Miya twins duo, but Atsumu came back four weeks later with a shiny Jaeger-compatible prosthetic developed by Kozume himself, and so, Aran has yet to be sent out to an actual mission, even though he knows he’s one of the best pilots around. 

When Marshall Ukai summons him to the training grounds with talk of a promising new transfer from Tokyo, Aran tries not to get all of his hopes up yet again—but he’s restlessly anxious to finally go out into the sea for real, since that’s what what he dedicated his entire life to in the last couple of years.

… Of course a part of him is scared shitless regardless. He’s never fought a real, life-size Kaiju in his life, and he knows that simulations can only prepare him so much—but he’s even more scared of the possibility of having to stay back at the Shatterdome all by himself, having to watch all of his friends and colleagues die miles away without being able to do anything about it.

He arrives at the the training hall in his workout clothes to an number of people already gathered in a row around the training hall—it’s nothing unusual, but most of them are simple cadets that train with unpaired pilots to see if there's anyone the higher-ups should push further than the rest, but so far none of them have really been Aran’s match.

The man stretching at the far edge of the mat though, is new. His stark white hair stands out the most, but his aura alone differentiates him from most people Aran has faced over the years. He knows that this _Kita Shinsuke_ is supposed to be a pilot newer than him, but he already exudes an atmosphere not unlike the Marshall, of a seasoned veteran who stands above it all, like the ever-present silhouette of the Mount Fuji, as described in a poem Aran once learned in school.

The man pulls up slowly, meticulously from his stretch, and only then does he deign Aran with his attention. He’s not quite calculating but definitely observes Aran, with large golden eyes that seem to assess everything about him all at once. Aran steps onto the mat itself and notices upon closer inspection that Kita is quite short—at least compared to most people here. His build seems strong though, not broad, but definitely filled-out and solid in a way that shows dedication to maintaining his current body, rather than necessarily being blessed with it. 

“You boys ready?” Ukai asks, not waiting for their reply. “Alright, you know the rules: First to get four strikes wins.”

They take up their bo staves, but when Aran turns back around to his opponent, he finds his head lowered respectfully. “ _I look forward to it_ ,” Kita says in Japanese, which surprises Aran a little—not that Japanese is rare to hear in the Shatterdome, but most people greet him in English when meeting him for the first time. He probably did his research then—or at least guessed enough from Aran’s last name.

“I look forward to it,” he echoes with a bow of his own, and they take up their fighting stances; Aran takes his staff with both hands at the bottom, pointing it offensively, while Kita holds his close to his thigh, like the sheath of a sword—reminiscent of a samurai, almost.

Aran takes a step forward. Then another one and another one, but while Kita is watching him alertly, he takes no initiative to move himself. He guesses he’ll have to attack first then, so he makes a solid swing at Kita, raising his pole with the full intent to land a hit.

Kita doesn’t even flinch when the staff stops a mere centimeter in front of his eyes.

“One-zero,” Aran says. Kita’s gaze meets him head on and he simply raises his staff to hit away Aran’s own and counterattack—he swings with surprising strength and speed that Aran has to actually try hard to parry. He feints once to his left, and a moment later, Aran has the wooden pole next to his right side.

“One-One,” Kita remarks neutrally—but no, there’s some sort of satisfaction in those eyes, so Aran wastes no time in continuing in his attacks, forcing a flurry of strikes onto him, and doing his best to dodge Kita’s skilled counters himself. One of his strikes knocks Kita back two steps, out of balance, so Aran tries to swing at him—but Kita dodges downwards, and uses the momentum to get his staff behind Aran’s shin, so he falls flat on his back, and has the weapon pointed right at his chest.

“Two-One,” the other says, this time with a smile on his his face—it strikes a chord somewhere within Aran, so he moves up and takes a sliding step back for distance, gauging Kita’s stance yet again—stable, but flexible—and comes down for the attack again, watching Kita’s movements intently, and focusing on maintaining his own balance. He manages to push Kita backwards with pure force as much as he can, and when they get to the edge of the tatami, Kita tries to step around him—so Aran uses the chance to raise his pole and pull it around Kita’s shoulders, pressing them together, back to chest.

“Two-two” He allows himself to gloat sightly, releasing Kita from his hold and letting him take measured steps backwards. His bangs are starting to stick on his forehead, Aran notices, but his breathing is steady and betrays no exhaustion. A testament to his stamina and control.

In a swift move he strikes at Aran yet again, almost an imitation of Aran’s earlier strategy, but Aran can parry him effectively again and again, and they start to exchange blow for blow, and Aran feels pride in the way that Kita is letting out harsh breaths and subdued sounds of effort now.

 _“It’s a dialogue, not a fight,”_ the Marshall’s old words echo through him and he realizes that Kita isn’t even trying to push him back—that is, until the very moment that Aran realizes this, and Kita uses the momentary lapse to knock away Aran’s staff with his own before swiftly turning its other end onto Aran’s face.

“Three-Two,” he says in the space between them, hot breath hitting Aran in the face, and he knocks Kita’s staff back more for show than for any need—Kita readily lets him take a couple of steps back, so they can face each other head-on. _This is it_ , he thinks. Either way, the match will be decided here.

Kita holds his staff back with one hand, parallel to his free outstretched arm, and slowly, they start to circle around each other, each daring the other to move first. Aran watches his body intently for any sudden movements, but then he glances back up at Kita’s face and somehow—he can’t look away. That neutral gaze, like a solid gold plaque, has morphed into something alert, alive and _dangerous_ , if not outright predatory. There’s no simple, detached observation, only intent, and when Kita quirks his eyebrows briefly, the purpose is clear—the challenge is set.

They lunge at each other simultaneously, exchanging a flurry of blows one after the other, followed by even more dodges and feints that are each dodged and responded to again. It’s their longest round so far, and Aran delights in the way that Kita comes at him with a new type of aggression, still as compact and focused as his entire being seems to be, but the thrum of competition resonates clearly between them.

Kita swings at him, Aran parries and pushes him off to the side again, trying to force him out of balance, so he can’t escape his next swing, but Kita is quick on his his feet and ducks below again, raising his staff for a strike—But Aran learned from the previous rounds, traps Kita’s swinging arm between himself and his staff, and pushes down with his weight to roll them over.

He’s not sure what happens then, but he feels even more force roll him futher, over on his back, a leg effectively pushing away his sword arm, a hand on his collarbone solidly pushing downwards, and a staff a hair’s width away from his neck.

“Four-Two,” Kita says in a sharp exhale, a whisper really, that Aran barely even registers over the sound of his own beating heart and laboured breathing. Kita is panting above him too, still immobilizing him with all of his limbs and looking down at him with an unreadable gaze—it’s back to being eerily neutral again, but he still watches Aran just as intently as he is watching Kita, something wordless but poignant passing in the heat between them.

 _This is it_ , he knows in his very core. _I’ve found him_.

A loud clap resounds through the hall, and they both look up to see the Marshall approaching them, a rare satisfied smile on his face.

“Well done boys,” he tells them, and Kita takes a moment to extract himself from Aran and stand up again, offering his hand to Aran in turn—he takes it, and is pulled up by a strength that he’s not used to, but that doesn’t really surprise him at this point.

“I think the case is clear,” Ukai continues. “I want you both suited up by Aurous Flare tomorrow at 09:00 sharp, got it?”

“Yes, sir!” They reply in unison and the Marshall nods in satisfaction, dismissing everyone else around them—Aran had honestly forgotten there were even others, as they sparred.

Kita silently walks up to his shoes, perfectly lined up at the edge of the mat, and then puts on a zip-up hoodie, releasing cleanly from a proper fold with minimum effort.

“Sooo, Kita-san, huh?” Aran speaks up as the takes his own shoes in his hand and walks over to Kita.

“Ojiro-san, right?” Kita replies, looking up at him curiously. Even sitting down, their height difference is abundantly obvious.

“Ah, Aran is just fine, everyone calls me that ‘round here.” 

“Then Shinsuke is fine for me too,” Kita replies, and then bends into a couple of more stretches, like he did just before the match. Aran decides to join him, even if he’d normally not bother. 

“So you’re also from Kansai?” Kita asks while they’re both still leaning down, a little nasally, delightfully new. 

“Ah, yeah, from Hyogo. You?”

“Huh. Me too.”

“No way! Where?”

“Amagasaki.”

“Huh. I’m from Kobe but that’s still pretty dang close.”

“That’s true,” Kita replies evenly, and then pulls himself upright again, Aran following suit. “Sorry, but would ya mind showing me to the personal quarters? I believe I had my things sent there already, but I only really arrived two hours ago, and was almost immediately sent over here…”

“Ah, sorry ’bout that! The Marshal can be real crass sometimes… But he does what needs to be done.”

Kita chuckles lightly, the sound barely even being echoed as they walk through the hallways that are familiar to Aran.“Then I should probably feel honoured that our meeting was one of those tasks that needed to be done,” Kita replies with a small smile, and Aran feels the need to scratch the back of his neck. 

“Ha, yeah, guess that was pretty lucky,” 

Kita only hums in reply and doesn’t try to start up another conversation and Aran is left a little like a fish out of water—he _wants_ to talk to Kita, because the memory of the adrenaline coursing through him during their match is still putting him on edge, but Kita seems almost untouchable now—Aran knows deep in his heart that they’re almost more than just drift compatible, that eventually, they’ll let all of their thoughts and memories and feelings spill into each other and he'll know everything he’ll ever need to know about Kita, but a part of him, right here, right now, wants to already grab onto that energy, that _connection_ , and never let go.

They arrive at the quarters almost too quickly, in Aran’s opinion.

“So, uh, y’know where your room is?” 

“Yes, 167.” 

“That’s almost next to mine, here,” he points at his own door with 164 above, just diagonally across, but accompanies Kita to the front of his own door, but not quite daring enough to try and enter, even if he’d like to spend more time with Kita.

“So, y’know, if you ever need anything…” Is what he tries for instead, and Kita turns around to smile at him through the doorcrack.

“I’ll keep it in mind. See ya, Aran-kun.”

“S-see ya, Shinsuke-kun.”

Aran feels pretty dumb as soon as the door closes behind him, and immediately goes off the groan into a pillow in his own room. How awkward can he _be_? He’s an adult, he’s usually good with people, he shouldn’t have this much trouble talking to some random guy, especially when they have so much in common and are certainly drift compatible— 

And yet, when Aran gets over his moment of self-cringe, he finds himself smiling into the pillow—in fact, he almost can’t stop smiling for the entire rest of the day, and even the twins call him out on it during dinner time, especially when he keeps a lookout for Kita throughout the cafeteria.

He can’t even really fall asleep late into the night, and though he knows the importance of valuing every wink of sleep he can possibly get, in the end, he still decides to set off with a loose jacket and walk down the cold, iron corridors towards to the hangars, as most people do when they can’t sleep.

There’s just something about these giant machines—something absurd and godlike at once, but first and foremost Aran finds them inspiring: a symbol of human ingenuity, perseverance, of taking fate into your own hands and then kicking it in the ass if it doesn’t go the way you want it to. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and he’s not delusional about the safety concerns still associated with Jaegers, but as a pilot, these are his only weapons against a world-ending threat—and he intends to use them to the fullest extent that he can.

He takes one of the many elevators up to the higher platforms, that are almost on eye-level with these spirits of war, and walks up to the one that captivates him the most—that he knows is this close to being _his_ after so long.

Aurous Flare is a beauty even compared to other Jaegers, in his opinion—she stands out with her eponymous golden coloration, a shining beacon of hope in the treacherous blue-blacks of the sea and stormy skies. She also has a proud track record, being arguably the best Jaeger of the Mark-3 generation, developed in the Tokyo Shatterdome, and Aran doesn’t think there’s anyone in his generation that didn’t grow up watching Udai and Tsukishima’s Aurous Flare defend Yokohama on her virgin mission on TV, spurring on the hopes and dreams of thousands of children of becoming cool heroes in a cool shiny robot, too.

As he approaches the end of the walkway that has the closest view of Flare, he spots another figure already leaning against the fence in the spot that Aran had mentally reserved as his. He steps closer anyway, and when it’s Kita who turns around to the metallic sound of his footsteps, surprise is reflected in his startingly golden eyes.

“Oh. Hello.”

“Hey,” Aran replies, and then steps up next to Kita, leaning against the metal fence himself. “Can’t sleep?”

“Not really,” Kita replies with surprising honesty “Quite a lot happened today.”

“I guess, yeah. You got yourself settled?”

“Almost. Atsumu and Osamu caught me later in the evening and insisted on showing me around, so I didn’t really have time to unpack everything yet.”

Aran chuckles lowly. “They’re certainly somethin’, huh.”

“Yes, they’re…” Aran glances over at Kita, and almost has to hold back from laughing out loud at his expression. Not truly angry at all, but definitely trying to put not-so-nice words into more digestible terms.

“You can say they’re annoyin', everyone knows it.”

“Ah, I wouldn’t go so far,” Kita replies, but the smile on his lips betrays him. “I’d call it… chaotic, maybe?”

“Ha! That’s one way to put it,” Aran chuckles again, fondly. “But they’re good kids. “

“Oh, I know. We started out as cadets at the same time, actually.” 

“Oh,” Aran notices, and puts the math together quickly. “But you—”

“Only became a pilot this year. It’s a little embarrassing, I know,” Kita smiles yet again, but his eyes are downcast to the point that Aran almost can’t see them, and he wants to internally fling himself off the platform they’re standing on for voicing that thought out loud.

“I-I mean you’re here now, right? That’s what counts,” he replies hastily, which seems to at least be enough for Kita to look up at him again.

“...You’re right,” he replies slowly, a smile spreading over his face. “I am here now. And I’m glad for it.” He leans a little towards Aran even as he looks back to Flare, and their arms brush against each other.

Aran turns his head away too, but leans into the weight beside him in turn. “I’m glad too. That you’re here now.”

They spend a couple of minutes in silence then, still just watching the golden Jaeger in front of him, or glancing down below towards the few mechanics still working at this time.

“Can I ask you something?” Kita suddenly speaks up agan.

Aran turns back to him in surprise. “Huh? I mean, sure, shoot.”

“Why did you want to be a pilot?”

“Oh.” It’s a reasonable question, Aran supposes, though it’s always asked rather carefully—many pilots have lost someone to the Kaiju, both before and after conscription, and these losses are tied to their motivation more often than not.

“I just thought t’was the right thing to do. My mom was actually in the air force in the US, and I always thought it was real’ cool of her. She was retired by the time I was born, but knowing that, and seeing all these cool heroes on TV when growing up… It just felt like something I should do.”

He call tell Kita is watching him, even as his own gaze is set firmly on Flare as he reminisces about his childhood, his family, the wide-eyed enthusiasm he had as a kid, but when Kita simply hums in reply, and Aran looks back at him, he’s looking off into the distance again.

“And you?”

It takes a while for Kita to reply. 

“... I wonder. Honestly, I’m not sure myself.” Huh. Not something Aran has heard often, but he lets Kita have his time to say more.

“I was never that ambitious and no one pushed me into it. But, my family was actually in Sendai when the attack in 2018 happened. We were warned beforehand and got sent to a shelter in advance, and we all survived—but something always just felt... Wrong. About the experience.” 

Aran can see Kita’s hand clutching the railing harshly, white knuckles standing out even in the ambient darkness of the hangear at night.

“It felt wrong to me to just sit in a shelter for a dozen hours have no control over whether I live or die.“ He scoffs lightly, at himself. “It sounds cliche I suppose, but I guess I’d rather die in battle trying my best to survive, rather than wait for the inevitable to happen in some shady bunker."

It does sounds cliche—something that the likes of Atsumu and Osamu might have spouted sincerely when they first became pilots, and that they still sometimes claim in a bout of confident posturing as reassurance to themselves more than anything else—but coming from Kita it doesn’t feel trite or overblown. Much like Kita himself, it feels simple but enlightening, a quiet philosophy of being that sits just under the skin of this mountain of a man, just bubbling beneath the surface—not threatening to erupt, but warm enough to be felt anyway.

“… It’s not a bad way of thinking,” Aran manages to reply after a while. “I admire that, honestly.”

“Thank you,” Kita replies, “though it’s not all that admirable. And It’s not like I had any other significant goals in mind. I just had nothin’ to lose, really.”

“Don’t say that.” Aran feels almost surprised at his own outburst as Kita looks—and he’s not usually on to criticize other people’s beliefs, either, because that’s none of his business—but this, somehow—feels important. 

“You have your life to lose. That’s not nothing.” 

Broadly, Aran would say there’s two kinds of pilots—those who fight to protect, and those that fight for revenge. Most people _are_ a mixture of the two, trying to protect what they love and what they still have in this world, while simultaneously giving payback for their lost ones—or just for the world itself. Still, usually, people fall on one side of the line or the other, and Aran has never liked interacting with people that fight for revenge, precisely because they will throw themselves at any Kaiju and fight no matter the cost. He doesn’t think that Kita falls into that category—but he also doesn’t want to see him cross over into it, either.

Kita’s eyes soften, and he smiles up at Aran—perhaps the most kindly, genuinely, that Aran has yet seen.

“I’m sorry. You’re right. I’m not here to throw my life away either—I intend to fight. And win.” 

“Good,” Aran replies with a solid nod, once he’s confirmed that Kita got his message, and he allows himself to smile a little too. “I won’t let ya die so easily after I finally found a partner.” 

“Oh really?” Kita asks in fake curiosity, but not at all maliciously, before continuing on a more serious note.

“Y’know, they’ve told me that I have a knack for being drift compatible with just about anyone. But… It felt different today. With you. And I want to cherish that.”

Aran feels the honesty of those words in his very bones, probably because he feels them within himself, too. He thinks he knows by now that Kita is not a liar by nature, probably, but this confession just _feels_ special—like something Aran should treasure, if only because he might not have been able to put it into words in the first place

“Well then, I look forward to driftin’ with ya, partner,” Aran replies, hand stretched out. Kita doesn’t need to look down to take it, strongly, resolutely, like a promise, those golden eyes of his twinkling up kindly at Aran instead.

“Likewise, partner.”

**Author's Note:**

> i apologize at this stage for any leftover mistakes bc i read over it once and it's Very late but hey, feel free to yell at me over the mistakes on [twitter](https://twitter.com/emeraIdpalace)


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